Pastor Note #124: Forgiving–Why Should I?

Let’s start with this key truth about forgiveness, one that runs counter to much of what we tend to think and what we hear from our culture.  Forgiveness does not start out as a feeling.  It starts out as a decision.  We almost always decide to forgive someone who has hurt us before, often long before we feel forgivingly toward that person.  The feeling follows the decision, and often it takes a long time for our feelings to catch up with that decision.

Forgiving is something we do when we feel hurt.  And so, forgiving someone who has hurt us will almost always be something we do exactly when we least feel like doing it.  This is not to say that we will never feel forgiveness toward a person who has hurt us.  But it is to say that forgiveness doesn’t start as a feeling.  It’s a decision that moves toward a feeling.

It’s also helpful to recognize that forgiveness is a process.  It’s a process that starts with a decision, and that decision often has to be renewed again and again over a long time before we find ourselves feeling forgivingly toward the person who has hurt us.

Because the process of forgiving someone who has hurt us is generally hard work, it helps to have a good handle on why it’s so important for us to do.  Doing a hard thing without knowing why we’re doing it is very hard and, in the end, feels pointless.  But although forgiving someone who has hurt us is, as I’ve said, often very hard, it is far from pointless.  There are some very good reasons why it’s so important for us to do it.

If you are not a follower of Jesus, this first reason probably won’t carry much weight with you.  But the first reason for forgiving someone who has hurt us is that Jesus has told us to do it.  The command to forgive those who hurt us is all through Jesus’ teaching.  One of the most full-orbed of his teachings on the topic is found in Matthew 18:21-35.

This command from Jesus to forgive those who hurt us isn’t an isolated order that stands alone.  It comes with a couple of important points of context that we do well to keep in mind.  The first point of context is that Jesus models it for us.  In the face of betrayal by one of his closest followers, outright denial by another, and abandonment by almost all of the others, in the face of the most unjust abuse by the religious authorities and appalling physical brutality and torture by the legal authorities—in the face of all of that, some of his final words from the cross were “Father, forgive them.”  Jesus is not commanding us to do something that he himself is unwilling to do.

And that fact leads me to the next important piece of context.  That forgiveness that Jesus announced from the cross was not just for those standing around him then.  That same forgiveness is for us also.  The followers of Jesus are those who have experienced that forgiveness in our own lives and have received it with deep and life-transforming gratitude.

And as Jesus points out in that parable in Matthew 18 (vv. 23-35), genuinely experiencing forgiveness is life-changing.  I do not mean to suggest that, if you are struggling to forgive someone who has hurt you, you yourself have not really experienced God’s forgiveness in your life.  There are a number of things that can create blockages for us in our ability to forgive those who have hurt us.  Still, when we are struggling to forgive someone who has hurt us, it is not a bad thing to spend time reflecting on our own need for God’s mercy and forgiveness through Jesus.  Steeping ourselves deeply in the mercy and forgiveness of God helps to open our hearts more freely to forgive others.

But I don’t want to downplay the fact that forgiving is often very hard for us, especially if the hurt we have suffered is deep or if it comes from someone close to us whom we trusted or if it has been the result of a long, persistent pattern of abuse or neglect, and especially if it is all three of those things.  Forgiving can be very hard, but reflecting on Jesus can help.

There are some misconceptions about what forgiveness is.  Those misconceptions can make it harder for us to forgive.  First, it is important to understand that forgiveness is not a denial that a wrong was done.  Forgiveness is only on the table if a genuine wrong has actually been done.  If you have not been hurt, then there is nothing to forgive.  When we forgive, we are not denying that a wrong has been done.  We are declaring that a wrong has been done.

Although we have a tendency to misunderstand forgiveness as a kind of denial or minimizing of a wrong done, we all know that that isn’t really true.  That’s why people who have hurt someone else but refuse to acknowledge the fact will often react angrily if their victim offers them forgiveness.  “How dare you say you forgive me!  I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.  I have no idea what you could be talking about.”  Forgiveness is a positive assertion that someone has hurt us but that we choose not to hold that hurt against them.  Unrepentant wrongdoers find that offensive.

That notion of repentance brings us to another matter that is sometimes an obstacle to forgiveness.  We can often convince ourselves that our forgiveness is something that the person who has hurt us should earn or deserve before we offer it to them.  There’s no denying that it is a whole lot easier to forgive someone who acknowledges what they’ve done and apologizes for it.  Keep that in mind anytime you hurt someone.  Make things easier for them.  Acknowledge your fault and apologize.

But there are at least two really important reasons why demanding that people acknowledge their wrong and apologize before you forgive them.  First, it isn’t how Jesus did it and does it.  He did it from the cross exactly while almost all of his followers were in hiding trying to save their own skins, while the religious authorities stood by and mocked him, while the men who had driven the nails through his wrists and ankles were gambling for his cloak at the foot of the cross.  And “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)  The Bible presents Jesus as the model for us in this matter of forgiveness.  “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col. 3:13)

But there’s another important reason why we should forgive without waiting for the person who has hurt us to acknowledge their wrong and ask for forgiveness.  If we do that, we give up control of the situation and give that control over to the very person who has hurt us.

Unforgiveness is toxic.  It’s poisonous to us psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Holding onto unforgiveness, bitterness, and resentment compounds the hurt we’ve already experienced.  Forgiveness is the path to healing and well-being.  Do we really want to put someone else in charge of our healing and wholeness?  Especially someone who has hurt us and is unrepentant about it?  Forgiving someone who has hurt us does not and should not depend on that person admitting their fault and apologizing.

One other misunderstanding about forgiveness often interferes with our ability to forgive.  We can sometimes get confused about the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation.  The two are certainly related, but they are not the same.  We cannot be reconciled to the person who has hurt us unless we forgive them.  Forgiving a person who has hurt us does not mean that we will necessarily be reconciled with them.  There are at least two reasons why that is so.

First, forgiveness is in itself essentially a solo action.  It’s something that we do all by ourselves.  Reconciliation, however, is an activity that requires the willing participation of both parties.  The person who has hurt you may have no interest in being reconciled to you and having a healthy relationship with you.  In that case, reconciliation is impossible.  You can dance a jig by yourself, but you can’t tango alone.  You need a willing partner.

Reconciliation is certainly desirable, but it simply isn’t entirely within your control alone.  Forgiveness always is.  So, forgive, and then, insofar as it depends on you, be reconciled.

But there’s another reason why we need to understand that forgiveness does not always lead to a restored, healthy relationship, especially if the hurt is not a one-time offense but a long-term pattern of hurt and abuse.  A person can acknowledge that they have done you wrong.  They can apologize.  And then fall back into the same ingrained pattern of abuse toward you.

Even in this situation, we all need to move toward forgiving the person who hurts us for all of the reasons I’ve been talking about.  But—and this is a very, very important “but”—forgiveness does not ever require us to trust an untrustworthy person.  Forgiveness is not something to be earned, but trust definitely is.  Forgiving a person who has a history of abusing us in no way requires us to remain in that abusive relationship, even if the abuser says “sorry.”  Trust after patterns of abuse can only be restored by long-term patterns of repentance and life-change and trustworthy behavior.

So, if these are some things that forgiveness is not, what is it?  Here are some ways to think about forgiveness.  As I’ve said already, forgiveness is first of all a decision, and only over time does it become something we feel.  If you wait until you feel like forgiving, most of the time you won’t ever do it.  And then the result will be an ever-increasing load of bitterness and resentment in your soul.

Forgiveness can be a kind of act by which we take the hurt, the bitterness, the resentment, the betrayal that we feel and place it in God’s hands and then leave it with him to deal with.  That last part is, admittedly, not easy and often has to be repeated over and over again.  That’s why I referred to forgiveness as being not so much a single act as a process done (and re-done) over time.

But the key to this way of thinking about forgiveness is the real spiritual act of handing over to God these burdens of offense, hurt, bitterness, resentment, and such things.  It’s God’s business to mete out justice.  Forgiving is an act of placing our wounds in his care and trusting him to deal with the offender as seems right to him.  It can help to visualize this act of handing over in our minds as we pray the matter into his hands.

As I’ve said before, in the matter of forgiving, the decision almost always comes first.  Only later, sometimes a long time later, the feelings follow.  But it can help to think of the process of forgiving as one in which we are training our feelings to conform more and more to the heart of Jesus.  That doesn’t happen overnight.

This is not just a matter of raw obedience.  It is also a matter of seeking our own well-being.  As I’ve already pointed out, holding onto feelings of bitterness and resentment is detrimental to our mental and spiritual health.  Held onto over time, those feelings make us bitter, resentful people, who are quick to take offense and long to hold onto it.  Such people are not pleasant to be around and are poor representatives of Jesus.

As we nurture a heart of forgiveness in ourselves, we make ourselves better able to fulfill one of the great commands of Jesus and one of the true distinctives of the followers of Christ.  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:43-45 NET)  Loving our enemies generally begins with forgiving our enemies.

Forgiving is not easy, and it generally doesn’t come quickly.  But it is right and good and good for us.  And the price of holding onto our unforgiveness is ruinously high.  Follow Jesus, and find peace in him.